Note: This post contains advice for people who eat too much dinner, not for people who eat too much dessert. I never had a real sweet tooth, so my advice might be worthless for those who do.
We all know that the only way to lose weight is to maintain a calorie deficit. Daily exercise can burn a few hundred extra calories (at best) and slightly improve your metabolic rate for the day, but what good is that for someone like me, who had gotten used to eating 3,500+ kcal/day several days a week?
When I was younger, I would often eat pizza, fried chicken, donuts, soda, and beer in the course of a single day.
How can you expect someone to cut their daily calories by 1/3? When you become accustomed to a certain rate of consumption, such an extreme reduction can be grueling for the mind and body.
You are up against about 1 billion years of evolution, telling you one thing:
EAT, UNTIL THERE IS NOTHING LEFT TO EAT.
Telling myself not to eat was like telling a bird not to fly. It took a long time to realize that the only way for me to keep the weight off is to trick my brain, and find a way to feel satisfied with far fewer calories.
I only just recently started to feel like weight loss is easy, about six months ago. I think it's because I finally found a combination of things that allow me to feel pretty full with very few calories. Nothing groundbreaking, just the specific things that work for me.
- Eat savory, umami things: Tomato sauce, beans, fish, meat, mushrooms, broth-based soups, chili, salsa, hot sauce, peanut sauce, fermented sauces, kimchi, tofu, tempeh. These foods provide the most satisfaction per calorie. Maybe it's just the protein and fat, but I think the taste also helps a lot.
- Eat bulky things: Roasted or steamed cauliflower and broccoli, entire cucumbers, carrots, spinach, kale, chard, collards, salad wraps, any fruit, low-cal smoothies.
- Avoid unsatisfying high-calorie things: For me, this was peanut butter, hummus, whole milk, cheese, bread, and chips. Go through your diet and find the most high calorie foods that you eat, then ask yourself, which ones actually make me feel full?
- Drink water: I drink many glasses of water throughout the day, and if I'm drinking tea or coffee I try to have a glass of water on the side every time.
- Drink green or black tea or coffee: Suppresses appetite, provides antioxidants and caffeine, and helps during fasts. I think green tea is the healthiest, but that's up for debate.
- Fast: I stopped eating before noon most days. An alternative would be to have one or two fast days each week, but for me fasting in the morning became second nature after about one week.
- Count calories until you can accurately eyeball them: I counted calories with an app for a couple months, until I had basically memorized the calories in all my favorite foods.
- Eliminate (or avoid) alcohol: I was never a big drinker, but I do enjoy a beer with a meal. Unfortunately, that beer often turns into two or three or four. For me, reducing my alcoholic beverage consumption by 95% was an extremely healthy and beneficial way to cut calories. Furthermore, alcohol weakens my mental state, which definitely makes it harder to lose weight. In fact, new research (pending peer review) shows that ANY amount of alcohol consumption is damaging to the brain, contrary to the popularly-held belief that "one or two drinks is OK". So, regardless of weight loss, I think it's a great idea to be the person who drinks the least alcohol among your friends and family. Your brain will thank you.
I hope this was useful to someone. I'm mostly just writing it down for mnemonic purposes, but you never know. Here's a picture of my recent progress. The picture on the left was by no means my heaviest weight, just the first time I was willing to take a before picture
[link] [comments]
from loseit - Lose the Fat https://ift.tt/2UBr3rs
No comments:
Post a Comment